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In the Chatelet-St Halles metro station, we came across a chamber orchestra -- two cellos and 7 violins -- playing like mighty heroes, filling the underground space with music. As it turns out, they were even selling CDs of their own performance.

The reason for the high quality of the music in the metro stations? Every six months the discerning Antoine Naso of the RATP holds permit auditions for metro musicians. From 250 to 350 groups pass muster, pay the fee, and are cleared to perform in the stations.

Here is his address, in case you are thinking of performing underground in Paris.

Antoine Naso
102 ter rue de Charonne
Paris, France 75011

Here are some notes as we start our airplane trip to Paris...

We arrived very early at the airport, so there was no line at the Air France checkin. Because our name was misspelled on the tickets we had worried very much that there would be a problem getting onto the plane. And indeed when the ticket agent noticed the misspelling he began a tsk-tsk frowning sequence.

However, once he began talking with Joe, who speaks french "sans accent", there was no probem. Because it turned out that he had sent his own children to the same school, and knew all the same teachers.

Later on, after we were ensconsed in the gate waiting area, who should appear but the ticket agent, bearing boarding passes with our name correctly spelled! All in all it was a good experence.

Great french roast coffee on air france -- what better evidence could there be of the continued existence of the charm of France?

A french friend told me that the food on Air France used to be good but had gone downhill, so I had low expectations but I didn't find that to be true.

The Air France experience is unique and still good, complete with small baguettes at the meal and of course wine. But it seems they have modified their wonderful custom of giving a clothing allowance to the women flight attendant and letting them dress like women, and replaced it with a set of uniforms, some of which look like real clothing, but the rest of which have fallen into the sailor suit fashion idiom.

And, sad to say, although the meal was gourmet as to inventory (I told you so, Joe repeated to his mother so many times that she complained), malheureusement the brandy course has disappeared. (footnote: not true you merely have to ask) An odd post-9-11 grace note apeared in the meal tray cutlery, where the fork and spoon were of metal, yet the knife was plastic.

About checking through security, I of necessity have nothing to say, save the fact that the metal wanding of my wedding ring, giving a slight beep, made me feel far less secure than if someone intelligent had been paying close attention to the very real security problems which I am sure must exist elsewhere in the system.

The seats in the back are not really big enough for a comfortable flight, and while a TV screen at each seat is an amusement factor that I'm sure will never go away, after listening to some jazz on the teeny headphones (boom ticka boom ticka BOOM)....

I said to myself, what the heck am I wasting my time with this for, and pulled out the old iPod to listen to Laurie Anderson, the Beatles, Bonnie Raitt, and various other fun stuff from my kitchen tunes playlist. Then I pulled Christina Wodtke's book out of the seat back pouch and read the rest of Chapter 6, where she talks about labelling. It's a fun chapter, and like almost every other part of the book I found myself disagreeing with her, but also finding something of interest and learning some good tips about procedures.

One aspect of web organization that she touched on briefly, but then I think missed the significance of, was that as more information piles on, people use their favorites section differently, and then, when there's too much information, they just give up using favorites and star using Google to find things again. If that's true, then where are we headed ? Does it make site information architecture more important, or pointless?

Another thing about the AF experience is that there's an assumption that you speak French. "Donnez moi votre tasse" said the flight attendant for my coffee. For me, the fact that I understand French and speak it a little bit is still in the department of "magic." Very much so.

Joe has just told me, as he looks at the video map of our course, where the air speed and outdoor temperature are displayed, along with some other statisics, that we are taking the same route as Brendan did over the North Atlantic. Except of course in reverse direction. At the moment it is minus 54 degrees celcius outdoors, and we are just south of Greenland, heading directly toward Paris. Of course! In a little while it looks like we will pass about 250 miles south of Reykjavic. pools=XML, Blog, Ruby